Mr Mist’s Blog

So it was the local elections around here yesterday. I didn’t vote, because none of the candidates deserved a vote. That’s pretty shocking, but true. Apparently the conservatives did well. Apparently folk have short memories if they think that they will be somehow better this time than last. If anything, I would have voted the libs in, but I’m not convinced there either really. Some of their policies are odd, too.

I’ve not been on here that much lately, will need to rectify that. Hard to find time, it seems.

I think the new car will be off to the dealer soon for them to look at a few things that have been niggling at me. First warranty repair ahoy!

Hope you are all well.

Mariokart Wii is awesome. Buy it now! It’s great fun! The wheel is a really funky addition to the controller, which, whilst not doing anything, does everything

Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz would probably be equally fun, if I could control it at all. But I can pretty much make the monkey go off the edge, or roll around until I run out of time.

Sonic and the lost rings (or something) falls pretty much neatly between the two.

Also the Wii is quite disturbing when the blue light flashes on and off.

It says in the news and on Google and on the Earth Hour Web site (if you can get to it) that today we are meant to turn off our lights for 1 hour between 8 and 9. The idea is to highlight the threat of climate change. I may try to do it here, though I am a bit confused as to who we are highlighting the threat to. I mean, the people who do it, they will already know. The people who don’t do it will either not care, or probably not know why the lights have just gone out. The politicians do whatever they like anyway.

At least we have a greener car now.

We dotted off into town today (in the shiny new car) and had Chinese at the recently raided Jumbo Chinese restaurant The prices have increased very slightly since the raid, related? Who knows? Still very nice though, which is what counts really. Then we just went for a random drive around, checking out Thoresby Market (it was closing, so we didn’t stay) and an antiques shop we happened across on the way (didn’t buy anything.)

The 118 drives quite nicely. It’s very different to the Vectra, obviously. With the runflats you can feel bumps in the road, but anyone who claims the ride to be firm has never ridden in a “sports-suspension” Vectra, which is something akin to a rigid-body The 1er has it just about right in my opinion. It’s been snowy these past few days, so no photos at the moment. Still getting used to the gears and the idea of having the engine automatically turn itself off whilst we stop. It’s quite bizarre, but at the same time satisfying because you’re not wasting fuel and whatnot.

Meanwhile back at home we have been playing Wii Big Brain Academy, to expand our brains. I don’t know if it is working

We settled on the 118 in the end. The original guy who we had a test drive booked with sold the test car??! So we embarked on a search to find someone with a 118i to test, and eventually found one in Leicester - well, technically not because it was actually an old style 120, but they are similar. We trekked off to Leicester and - surprisingly given some of the dealers we have had the fortune to meet recently - he had actually done some work for us and managed to find the 118 3 door for us to test after all. It drove nicely, I thought. Quite effortless. The automatic engine-off will take some getting used to, as it is freaky to have the car go silent. Should be ready some time next week. woo!

In other motor-related news, the new F1 season kicks off this weekend, and Hamilton took pole position for the Melbourne race [news.bbc.co.uk]. Wonder if he can start the season with a win?

This weekend I would like to take things easy because we have been dashing all over the place lately getting this car business sorted out.